A review of The Girl in the Spider's Web" by David Lagercrantz

[TexasProgresive]

I am glad that I read this novel years after reading the original Lisbeth Salander trilogy so that I could judge it on its own merits. Lagercrantz weaves a web of criminal political intrigue with strands of the NSA, Russian mobsters and a lady Zala. Blomkvist is having a bit of a midlife crises. Once the darling of investigative reporters the changing world of media has turned away from him. His deep well of seeing how best to lay out the truth seems to be dry.

Lisbeth has been out of his life for sometime and he misses her. Meanwhile Lisbeth is working hard to learn who has taken over Zalachenko's evil empire. Someone has been able to steal AI software that was secured with the highest possible cyber protection. Key to all this is a little autistic boy who exhibits signs of being a savant.

I enjoyed the novel for itself. As I reached the 2/3 mark memories of the original 3 Girl books started to come to the front of my mind. On Amazon there are mixed reviews with some loving and other hating the book. I agree with both the good and the bad reviews. What I find missing is in the character of Lisbeth. She was always the unpredictable action. Lagercrantz describes Salander as such, but she is a bit too predictable on the page.

The other thing is we want more of "The Girl." We don't get enough face time with her. Overall I give the book 7.5 stars out of 10. It is entertaining and worth reading just not the same as the original Larsson trilogy and how could be expect that? Lagercrantz leaves us with some spiders still on the loose so I expect there may be more Lisbeth adventures.